Currently, one of the ways to perform location tracking of items such as cargo, persons and assets comprises affixing an active beaconing tag to the item to be tracked, and deploying proprietary readers at key locations to read signals emitted by the active tag. The proprietary readers then transmit the signals to a data system. The active tag typically comprises a sensor that includes a microcontroller, transceiver, sensor chip, and power supply/harvester that work together under the control of a microcontroller unit that performs all data processing locally as a computation engine. Notably, such tags and readers can be costly to provide, particularly where large numbers of items need to be tracked. Furthermore, as the tag must be within the reading vicinity of a reader in order for its location (corresponding to the reader's location) to be noted, once the item has left the range of a reader, its actual location will not be known until it again comes within the reading range of another reader. During the time when the item is out of range of all readers, its actual location is in fact unknown and the item can become misplaced or stolen. To overcome this problem, it would be desirable to provide as many readers in as many locations as possible in order to minimize the duration where an item is out of range of any reader. However, this is clearly cost prohibitive to implement, particularly in cases where the item is expected to traverses vast distances, and may also be physically next to impossible to provide in many applications.
Another solution is to provide an active beaconing tag that does not rely on readers at key locations for tracking but that directly periodically transmits a signal to a satellite receiver that in turn transmits the signal to a data system. In this way, continual location tracking of the item can be achieved as the satellite receiver is not confined to a specific location, unlike the proprietary readers described above. However, this requires sufficiently low amounts of ambient RF energy in order for the signal sent by the active tag not to suffer from signal interference, and the broadcast signal must also be powerful enough to reach a satellite. Such active tags thereby consume much power, and are accordingly expensive to provide. Such active tags also suffer from scalability issues as it is often impossible to recharge or change the battery of an active tag during transit or storage of the item, in which case the active tag will stop transmitting signals once it is out of power and location tracking of the item will cease to be possible.